“Congress lacks the political will to fund comprehensive health care … because taxes above those already provided [in federal healthcare programs] would produce too much opposition,” the Virginia lawsuit says.
“The alternative... is to fund universal health care in part by making healthy young adults and other rationally uninsured individuals cross-subsidize older and less healthy citizens,” the suit says.
The seven-page lawsuit presents a straightforward challenge to Congress’s decision to rely on its power to regulate interstate commerce to justify the federal mandate that every individual must have health insurance or pay a penalty.
“It has never been held that the Commerce Clause [of the Constitution] … can be used to require citizens to buy goods and services,” the suit says. “To depart from that history to permit the national government to require the purchase of goods and services would deprive the Commerce Clause of any effective limits.”
March 24, 2010
Lawsuits challenging the new health care law.
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«Oldest ‹Older 201 – 281 of 281Petey - "Luis Guiterrez has been a member of the FALN since he was a young thug in Chicago."
Provide any proof of such a charge.
Moira Breen - Would you like for me to tea bag you sometime?
You can bring The Chipper along to take pics...and of course show us any new shots he's taken of HIM.
Lynne said..."You can choose not to have a car."
True, and you can do the same with health insurance until the mandates kick in...right?
So why start bitching and whining about something that doesn't take effect for quite some time...you know, until you actually see how the reforms work? (Other than just being obstinate.)
Is that really the best you have to offer? Just shut up because the mandates haven't started yet? You just validated my argument. Car insurance is not comparable because you don't have to own a car.
And further: No employer was ever fined for not offering car insurance to an employee.
And if I'm being forced to purchases a product, I have every right to know, in advance and in great detail, how that product will perform and what to expect from it longterm. You don't take my money and then say: "Wait and see!"
Lynne - The mandates don't start for years.
Get back to me in about 3 years.
Oh, and say hi to Glenn.
I may be an asshole Jeremy, but I am not an ordinary asshole, and the worst thing in life you can be is ordinary.
I, unlike you, am not a coward. A sniveling, hiding, slinking, yellow belly coward. I at least use my real name. You, on the other hand hide behind the facade of cowardice. You are the yellow pox and plague that infects this world.
Like a great American Patriot once said:
"We don't want yellow cowards in this Army. They should be killed off like rats. If not, they will go home after this war and breed more cowards. The brave men will breed more brave men. Kill off the Goddamned cowards and we will have a nation of brave men."
Jeremy's father was probably a coward too.
Did Alinsky followers make death threats and vandalize homes of people they disagreed with? I'm asking, I honestly don't know.
Back in the day Alinksy and his followers were a pretty rough bunch in an end-justifies-the-means and you-can't-make-an-omlet-without-breaking-eggs kind of way. Physical intimidation was certainly in the Alinsky bag of tricks, and Alinsky himself was pretty open about having a very flexible set of ethics, depending on the goal to be achieved.
Would Alinksy advocate trashing someone's office? Oh heck yes, if he decided that the goal justified the tactic. Did he personally ever participate in trashing? You don't know and I don't know either. He spent most of his career in Chicago and there's no way he would have done something that could get him picked up by Richard Daley's police -- broke every bone in his body getting into the back seat of the squad car is about the least painful result he'd have expected.
Was there a lot of overlap between Alinsky disciples and leftwing groups that did employ violence as a tactic? Also yes.
Is Barack Obama an Alinsky disciple? Alinsky died in 1972, so there never was any direct contact between the two. But he certainly has accepted the description of himself as an Alinsky disciple, and numerous Obama tactics are right out of the Rules for Radicals playbook.
There are other Alinsky disciples on this very thread. More than one of the commentators on your side of the debate seems to be adhering to the following guideline from Rules for Radicals: "Ridicule is man’s most potent weapon. It is almost impossible to counterattack ridicule. Also, it infuriates the opposition, who then react to your advantage."
So there's no point in trying to respond to "Jeremy" with mere facts and logic. One needs to dump ridicule on him and on Ritmo and on Alpha and maybe they'll give up and slither back under whichever stones they slithered out from.
But not to you. I think you and I will disagree on about 90% to 95% of what's out there, but it will be useful to find that 5% or so where we don't disagree and see if there's anything we can do with it.
I don't know if this answers your question, but it's the best I can do with the information I have at hand.
Petey - You appear to be having some kind of mental break down.
But, before completely losing what little mind you have left, why not provide the proof I asked for in a previous post?
You say; "Luis Guiterrez has been a member of the FALN since he was a young thug in Chicago."
Yet you provide nothing that substantiates such a claim.
I call that a lie.
And of course, we both know that cowards lie.
Say A guy who was paying the penalty shows up to a hospital and finds out he needs $1 million in health care for the next few years. Because you cannot be denied care, the guy gets to sign up for inusance right there. Thus at that point which lucky insurance company will he choose? And won't the insurance companies have an incentive not to be chosen? Will they engage in negative advertising about themselves?
Big Mike - "So there's no point in trying to respond to "Jeremy" with mere facts and logic."
Yeah, right.
Being a wing nut isn't easy, is it?
You love to blather on and on, but never really say anything different than the rest of the Obama haters who frequent this site.
Your "facts and logic" are mostly a regurgitation of the crap Beck, Hannity and Limbaugh at least get paid to dump on the the world.
As for Mr. Alinsky, he had many who felt he was a force for good, especially those who had little support from government, and he was certainly respected by even some who you yourself would consider to be "conservative thinkers.
He did one hell of a lot more for under-privilaged Americans than anybody who comments here...that's for damn sure.
If I were an insurance company I would move out of insurance and into insurance consulting and claims management or reinsurance for business. For example a business since it is not an insurance company would instead be the front for insurance. Since a business can choose not to hire someone and can lay off people then they could solve the preconditions problem.
"Robert Byrd denounced the KKK and his membership over 4 decades ago."
No, he didn't.
He just hides it.
He's still a card-carrying member. In fact, just a few years ago, he explained on national television what a "white nigger" is.
Robert Byrd is a secret KKK member to this day. And that you rise, sir, to defend him, means you agree with his racist attitudes and beliefs. You, AlphaLiberal, are the most horrid kind of a racist ... one too pussy to admit it openly.
It's actually quite fun trying to come up with ways to undermine Obama care. I suppose billions of man hours will be spent doing so. In fact I consider it everyones patriotic duty to undermine Obama care.
Of course the congress can always go back and try to fix stuff.....that is if they have 60 votes
The KKK is like the mob and biker gangs once in, in for life. Curious that real former members of the KKK have to live in fear of their lives, have changed their names and states, or live as protected people. Robert Byrd, a Kleagle(recruiter), walks among us laughing up his white robed sleeve.
He did one hell of a lot more for under-privilaged [sic] Americans than anybody who comments here...that's for damn sure.
Are you actually that stupid or this a gag? For all his trouble he caused Alinksy never did a thing to help the poor. Ending "welfare as we know it" helped with African-American poverty rates, but Alinksy? You must be a total fool.
Insurance companies should restructure themselves to become "health services companies.". They can then engage in intercorporate transactions to get around the insurance profit mandates. For example, a parent company could own both an insurance company and a hospital. It ccould then overcharge the insurance company for services in order to stay under the profit limit. The parent compay still retains the profit from the overcharge in it's non-insurance company subsidiary. Lawyers and business people will spend countless hours on these schemes.
Of course congress could fix these issues... If they have 60 votes.
Smaller states should choose to opt out of medicaid and instead offer their own minimal coverage. For severe cases they should provide a moving expense reimbusement program to move such persons to a state that is still in the program. Such a policy could save the opting out state billions while saddling the more generous state with lots of new Medicaid patients.
Saul Alinksy's first community organization with any success was from the Back of the Yards neighborhood in Chicago. It was an extremely tough area, with tough people. He had to develop a tough persona to convince them he was serious.
These were hard drinking, hard fighting, and hard living people- living on the edge and margins of society. Not quite poor, but no chance to move up. Many were racists, as the Back of the Yards at the time was mostly White.
The Back of the yards was one of the neighborhoods Chicago forgot. Thus, Alinksy found a group that was beholden to no one. It was easy to rile them up and organize them.
And won't the insurance companies have an incentive not to be chosen? Will they engage in negative advertising about themselves?
I can see it now: "You can sign up for our insurance by bringing a notarized birth certificate to our office in Kuala Lumpur any third Monday of months ending in "r". Please arrive a few days early, as the line can be long, and please remember we don't provide security or mosquito netting."
I think Dennis kucinich was right to oppose Obama care that had no public plan. The legislation is going to be a total disaster. A public option that rations care is really the only reasonable non-free market way to cover the uninsured. Obama care will fail.
Big Mike - You need to read more and talk less.
I never said that "everybody" would be shocked and awed...
No you threw out a challenge and I answered it. See that's what you do, make a blanket comment and then try and backtrack when you're called on it. You pulled the same shit with me with the Greece/Goldman Sachs topic a week or so ago and I pwned you like a little bitch.
Unless of course, you think no one here has any of those nasty "pre-conditions" the insurance companies love to use for denial.
Because the business of insurance is to hedge against risk. Providing coverage for someone with a pre-existing condition is not insurance its providing a prepaid health plan which basically what health insurance companies have become.
Oh, and if you haven't had insurance for that will also effect your getting it. (Call your auto insurer...they like that one, too.)
Jeremy, Don't lecture me on how insurance works. I've forgotten more about it than you'll ever know. If you can't get auto insurance because you such a shitty driver no commercial company will take you, then you go to the residual market where you'll be covered while paying nice hefty premiums.
there will be a catch-22 for insurance companies. People with preconditons or who find themselves in need of insurance after an accident will naturally choose the less expensive plans. But if all the people with preconditions buy the less expensive plans then such plans will be forced to raise there prices meaning that all insurance co
panies will keep trying to raise their prices to avoid being chosen by patients with preconditions.
I didn't even know who the hell Alinsky even was until the last election.
Funny. I didn't know who Barrack Obama was until he gave a speech in 2004. Since then I found out his dad was a communist, his mother a committed leftist who dumped her kid off with her parents who raised him where he ended up being a community organizer who failed at the two projects he worked on, sat in a racist church for 20 years listening to how shitty his country was and then had his political career launched in a former terrorist's living room.
Glad to see thats the kind of guy you voted for garage. I'll hang my hat with tea bagging "terrorists" any day than be associated with your kind.
Anyone notice when garage and Jeremy appear, the thread becomes the kind of effluvia fest Uncle Saul organized.
Jeremy said...
Dust Bunny Queen said..."They can....voluntarily...for now."
And they always will be able to.
Another one that didn't get the memo. They introduced a bill today to go to single payer, just the way The Zero always wanted.
PS Garage, you know all those swell goodies that were going to kick in right away to make us all love ZeroCare? Well, apparently, most of them don't kick in until 2014, after all.
@Jeremy, just telling you what reality is. The African-American poverty fell rapidly due to Johnson's Great Society programs, which Alinsky had nothing to do with, but stayed essentially flat thereafter until welfare reform in the mid-1990's.
As I say, that's reality. There's a word for folks like you who persistently deny reality, but with the advent of deinstitutionalization it will be hard to get you the help you need.
Here is how concerned professional doctors are responding to the new Obama death panels.
They're refusing to accept any form of insurance and are requiring their patients to separate their insurance interactions from their doctor-patient interactions.
They're refusing to provide insurance codes necessary to submit claims.
Doctors are not required to accept insurance. They are not required to cut the quality of care they provide to their patients just because the government regulates insurance mandates. In fact, they take a Hippocratic Oath to ensure they do not cut care just because Barack Obama said to.
People are reacting to the forced insurance purchase tax by opting out of the system; by breaking glass; by acting in concert to disrupt the system; by committing acts of civil disobedience; by organizing Tea Party fundraisers and by making sure the Congressmen who voted for this horrible bill are harassed everywhere they go.
It's good to see America re-engaging on political issues this way. I expect turnout in November will be double what it was when Obama snuck under the wire.
Good luck overturning Wickard, assholes.
I know nothing about Saul Alinsky apart from the fact that the raving neocons here are obsessed with him.
Which leads me to safely conclude that he must be a pretty insignificant figure.
John Stodder's strange definition of "zealots":
PRINCETON, NJ -- Nearly half of Americans give a thumbs-up to Congress' passage of a healthcare reform bill last weekend, with 49% calling it "a good thing." Republicans and Democrats have polar opposite reactions, with independents evenly split.
The findings, from a March 22 USA Today/Gallup poll conducted one day after the bill received a majority of votes in the U.S. House of Representatives, represent immediate reactions to the vote.
Americans' emotional responses to the bill's passage are more positive than negative -- with 50% enthusiastic or pleased versus 42% angry or disappointed -- and are similar to their general reactions.
So many opinions, so few facts...
Did Gallup happen to ask the respondents exactly how we're going to pay for Obamacare? For example, do the "49%" believe in Santa Claus?
Good luck overturning Wickard, assholes.
Yeah you win so much credbillity with that you moron. Christ no wonder everyone thinks you're an insufferable fuckwit.
Yeah you win so much credbillity with that you moron. Christ no wonder everyone thinks you're an insufferable fuckwit.
3/24/10 7:34 PM
Well, well, Hoosier. My oh my. One would think that with such an attitude, you actually know what you're talking about. But as with most partisan hacks, there is nothing like ignorance, impotence, and cluelessness to impel oneself into a state of self-righteous fury.
First off, I'm sorry you think that being polite wins more "credibility" than being right, or at least than having put one's stance through a well-reasoned thought-process - something you know by now I am more than capable of. Sure, with my use of the word "assholes" I'm sure my tone might have been off-putting, but so are the hacked posts and comments to which it responded. You don't like brutish comments? Try being less brutishly one-sided in your view of things. You don't like being spoken to in a dismissive way? Try being less dismissive of the views of the majority of the people in this country.
That having been said, what in God's name do you even know of Wickard, what bearing do you believe it can or would have on the suits, and why is all that less important than picking some choice words to use so that you can name-call me? Surely what you or other people think of me is less important to you than the outcome of these suits, is it not?
OTOH, if you wanted to have a civil discussion with those who disagree with you, you might want to give the impression that you even understand the substance of the comment you took issue with. Or maybe substance just doesn't matter to you.
And if it doesn't, you have no standing to take exception to the extraneous insults embedded in my otherwise ingenious comment.
Good luck overturning Wickard, assholes.
From your keyboard to God's ears. (God doesn't mind the occasional mild profanity)
Wickard was an evil decision back in 1942 when the Court was still shaking in its boots from FDR's proposed court-packing scheme. It was a go along to get along decision, and we've been paying for it ever since.
US v Lopez shows there may be some light at the end of the tunnel, as did US v Morrison, while Raich seemed to confirm Wickard and conventional wisdom. There's really no telling how it will go, although the more recent cases have been chipping away at Wickard.
It will be a great day when Wickard is struck down and proper restraints are restored on Congress's interpretation of the Commerce Clause.
BTW, Ritmo,even Wickard doesn't compel every individual to purchase something for his own personal use. Even the CBO acknowledges that such a thing has never been done before.
If you were honest you'd admit that the individual mandate is an overreach.
"Good luck overturning Wickard, assholes."
Good luck overturning the results of the next civil war, fucktard.
Given the abomination that was the Raich decision, you'd think I'd be sympathetic to overturning Wickard. But none of that matters now as the law of the land regarding legal precedents of how health care is affected by rulings on the Commerce Clause, seem well-established.
The only potential problem is the way the law was written. Congress has the authority to tax, and congress has the authority to subsidize or create tax credits. Those who participate in the health care insurance market might be more numerous than those who would choose to not avoid the tax, but that's their problem. The only difference is semantics and the fact that numbers are not on their side.
Anyway, getting back to Wickard and Raich, you may recall that SCOTUS believes the government has such a compelling right to regulate commerce that it can prevent people from self-medicating. There is simply no basis for denying Ms. Raich the "alternative" medical treatment that her physician testified would save her life, while allowing so many others from escaping whatever medical market the government deems legitimate while foregoing the tax for doing so.
If SCOTUS can tell Raich that death is not a significant obstacle to enforcing the Commerce Clause, than I hardly see how it has any standing to tell a bunch of wanna-be tax cheats that their interest in preventing the enforcement of the Commerce Clause is more significant.
Plus, (and this is just a rhetorical-political point, but you cons asked for it), you can't simultaneously argue that HCR was a communist plot to end the free-market, AND that health care isn't just a commodity like any other service that can be provided through market principles. Is health care special -- something so important and sacred that we liken it to a privilege, even a right -- or is it just like any other sector of the economy providing widgets?
Choose one. Choose wisely.
And choose in such a way as to not come across as a massive hypocrite.
Well anyway, that about sums it up.
If five conservative extremists can tell a woman that death is not too extreme a measure for her to suffer in exchange for the enforcement of the commerce clause, then they surely have no standing to tell a bunch of activists that taxation is a more serious infringement of their liberties.
Either Raich is overturned, or HCR stands. Take your pick, cons. And yes, my opinion of people who threaten civil war, violence and bloodshed without even having had the brains, foresight or civility to have figured this out beforehand, is not very high.
SCOTUS must know what's coming.
Even if Ann was too partisan to have figured this out, once Volokh or whoever picks up on it, I'm sure she'll catch on. Not to pick on Althouse, though. Frankly, none of you (or anyone in the right-wing talking chamber/bubble-o-sphere) saw this coming.
So there you have it.
The Health Care Bill passed. All the morons and nitwits are celebrating. What they are celebrating. The supposed 32 million without insurance will still have no insurance for a few years. So can someone tell me what you are celebrating?
Is this like I will buy you a pony when you get older?
Oh, and before anyone pounces on me for neglecting to subtract Thomas, Rehnquist or O'Connor from the phrase "five conservative extremists", that's not the point. The point is whether you could see "law and order" boys like newcomers Roberts and Alito upholding Raich and those swell key provisions of the CSA that are just so gosh darn important. Goodness knows they're not liable to be any less conservative than dissenters O'Connor and Rehnquist were!
Pick it up, cons! This will be a fun "wedge issue" to apply to you!
First off, I'm sorry you think that being polite wins more "credibility" than being right, or at least than having put one's stance through a well-reasoned thought-process - something you know by now I am more than capable of.
Ritmo you wouldn't know a reasoned stance if it bit you on your ass. All you ever do is come here and shoot your mouth off and denigrate anyone with an opposing viewpoint, which to you, is anything right of Lenin.
I could care less if you're polite. I always pegged you as an insufferable asshole anyway. Then there are those possible newcomers who might say, gee who is this Ritmo person? Oh, just another leftist blowhard.
As for a civil discussion, try learning it yourself instead of coming across like a fucking know it all when you don't know jack shit and all your retort boils down to is ' oh you dumb conservatives' which pretty much defines you as a partisan hack.
I can easily have a reasoned and logical discussion with someone whose mind is actually open to debate rather than yours which is closed to any concept that your fragile ego didn't think of first.
Dearest "Hoosier",
I'll take your unwillingness/inability to engage any of the numerous, substantive points that I engaged with Joan as a testament to your interest in "reasoned and logical discussion" with a "mind (that) is actually open to debate". Or rather, your lack thereof.
Any more insults you wanted to get in? As it stands, you managed to get in a number of references to "ass", "shit" and "fuck" (or various versions thereof), as well as "blowhard", all while accusing me of having a fragile ego! That's quite an accomplishment at less than 200 words. You also managed to throw in the standard boilerplate, talking point references to Lenin, while accusing me of being a partisan hack. This despite the fact that I actually addressed Supreme Court rulings, issues of life and liberty, the context of current (and, in your view, horrendously controversial) legislation. Many of which could hold up regardless of how any particular political lens applies to them.
Now, can you honestly say you did that? Can you honestly say that you would be willing to do that? Remember, I already gave you the chance to, but you're apparently still too busy licking your wounds over one epithet in a 5-word precaution related to judicial rulings to have noticed.
Maybe it's just me, but I say it's time you move on. I did. So did Joan (or maybe she just noticed there were more worthwhile things that could be discussed). But maybe your understanding of civility leaves much to be desired in the "foregiveness" and "letting go of personal vendettas" departments.
But that's cool, man. It's up to you. Take out your political frustrations on me. I don't mind. As with most pseudonyms with fragile egos (hey, it's what you want to believe), I have better things to worry about, and more interesting things to discuss. So I won't take it personally if you, apparently, don't.
Oh, and thanks for lacking any clue about my political sentiments. That was edifying.
Hey Ritmo, where did you get your law degree? From the University of Wikipedia?
You sound jaded, Bella. Especially for someone who doesn't/can't engage the specifics of Raich or Wickard.
What's the matter? Did you take a few too many beatings from the lawyers when you were on the witness stand during your days on the beat?
Tell me, Pete... which community college does one go to in order to believe that taxation is a greater infringement on one's liberty than barring their access to life-saving medicine?
And no, I won't look forward to your response. At least not until you learn to be a bit more responsive.
BTW, an understanding of the Commerce Clause is usually required in school, before college. But if you don't like what Wikipedia has to say about it, I'm sure there are other encyclopedias that can fill you in on the basics of it.
If there is a challenge that a lawyer can mount in response to my reasoning, I'd like to see it. By all means.
This president and this administration is like a cancer on this country.
Time for chemo and radiation.
I think I have a solution to the problem. Jobs as a Senator or Congressman should be reserved for really expensive chronically sick people so they can get the great health care.
Healthy people need not apply.
Ritmo - had chauffeur duty, kids' piano lessons.
IANAL, but last year I had to take a U.S. Constitution class for my AZ state teacher certification test, and I felt like a 1L (I was in fact married to a lawyer in a previous life.) We spent quite a bit of time on the Commerce Clause, and the major cases that have determined its scope. As a conservative, I found most of the cases horrifying. What do you mean, a farmer can't keep his own wheat to feed his chickens? Obviously absurd on the face of it, and yet, there's Wickard, the camel's nose in the tent.
That was a horrible time for freedom in this country. It's amazing we've made it so long with the freedoms we've had.
Anyway: Raich was a bad decision, too, IMO, although I have not read the opinion, just discussions of it.
The thing is, as I said before, neither Wickard nor Raich is on point here, especially as the law is written, with the fees applying to individuals, which can be challenged as a capitation. The 16th Amendment clears the way for income taxes levied not based on apportionment, but does not OK taxing people just because they exist -- which is what this law does.
And don't go saying it's an insurance premium. SSI and Medicare "insurance" were defended as taxes in the Supreme Court when they were challenged -- and the IRS is gearing up to hire some 16,000 new folks to oversee the administration of this nightmare. It's a tax, and it's per person, and it is thus, by my reading, unconstitutional, without even engaging the commerce clause.
Oh, yes: health care services should be market controlled. Health insurance should also be market controlled. The government needs to get its tentacles out. If we want to help the impecunious elderly, we can give them the cash to buy their own insurance on the market -- but it should be that, insurance to cover extreme expenses, not a policy that pays the podiatrist who clips the diabetic's toe nails. It's absurd how much standard care costs these days. Prices have escalated partly because the consumer is not the one paying for the service -- but also because the services provided have been increasing in quality, as well.
Consistent enough for you? The big problem, of course, is getting from where we are now to where we should be, with a free market. I'm not convinced that door has closed forever.
Like I said Ritmo, get a law degree and I will take you seriously. Other than that, you are just like Jeremy and Alpha. Phony.
Joan,
I respect your principled, conservative opposition to the rulings in both Wickard and Raich. I will leave it up to you if you believe this can be challenged on 16th amendment grounds. But I'm skeptical as all sorts of taxes exist, not just those based on income or whichever grounds I get the impression you believe are acceptable.
If the commerce clause has relevance, though, I think there is a strong case to made that as long as Raich holds, so does this. I won't go into re-hashing it, as you seem to see the basic point. But the abomination of Raich, let alone the issue of Wickard, is that the justices didn't even challenge the physician's finding that his patient might die due to seeking out their own "alternative" health care "market". However absurd you find the confiscation of private wheat held aside for personal consumption, this did take it to a whole new level.
I don't have an ethical problem with looking at the economics of health care through the lens of - or even with the aim of - a completely "market-based" approach. But this is no longer tenable. Medicare and Medicaid are not going away and they define in large part how the private market responds. Further, you could no longer convince physicians to remain opposed. The profession that provides health care had a moral problem with lack of coverage. That is significant. And people who don't get adequate care clog up the state's infrastructure through emergency services. These "tentacles", as you refer to them, are large, they are numerous, they are not going away, and they were growing in a worse way under the previous regime.
That said, I respect your right to your opinion and have been sympathetic in the past to expanding on private approaches. Health care economists used to tout these things (HSAs, etc.) as bending the cost curve by encouraging thrift and prevention. But that didn't turn out to be the case. People simply don't consume more health care just because it is given to them, and unless we do something about the financial tentacles that this sector of our economy had on the nation's economy, our long-term prosperity would remain in jeopardy.
And I disagree with you. Prices escalate because the healthy are cherry-picked by greedy CEOs. Larger markets (i.e. "exchanges" - a GOP idea) should help. But knowledge is too asymmetrical for consumers to bend the cost curve on their own.
I think this is a victory for the Democrats because it shows that they have the patience and conviction to follow-through. Whether the regulatory and practical landscape for health care changes further, either in response to this, to legal challenges, or in response to efforts of more confident Democrats to build on their success, is yet to be seen. But I doubt we are going back. And I also doubt that in ten years anyone will see much of a point, practically speaking, of doing so.
Once that happens, you might as well embrace what should turn out to be a pragmatic mechanism for controlling an excessively costly sector of this (and every industrialized) nation's economy, while bringing the people's health into a level that no longer aims toward the third world. If the GOP had done anything to prevent our financial decline over the last 20 years, I might be more skeptical. But they didn't, and because of that, I am happy to root for the Democrats as the pragmatic party for ensuring our long-term financial health. Keeping our country out of financial ruin is a priority and no smaller issues should prevent us from acknowledging that.
"Like I said Ritmo, get a law degree and I will take you seriously. Other than that, you are just like Jeremy and Alpha. Phony."
Actually I'm a real citizen who doesn't think lawyers have any greater say over my rights than I do.
So, you know, screw off. Neither do you. I have enough lawyers that I'm related to and know personally to understand that politics intersects all this in a way that is much more detailed than you will ever understand. I'm conversant and knowledgeable about at least as many things as you are, and you don't have a right to tell me that I can't have an opinion on whether someone's right to stay alive is more or less important than their right to avoid a tax.
Neither, I might bet, would any ambitious lawyer.
Until then, go call up other lawyers so that they can tell you how to think about things. But don't get confused. My voice and insight give me moral authority, and I claim no legal authority apart from how any lawyer with a conscience might resonate with that.
If you don't like that, tough. Deal with it or tune me out. Don't you dare tell me that your own humble understanding of the law makes me unworthy of having my own voice. Or else I'll write my congressman and ask them to remediate you on the first amendment.
Do me a favor Ritmo, write your Congressman to remediate my First Amendment rights. He will laugh at you like I am now. You have no morals, so you can have no authority. Does stand up astro turfing pay well?
More talking points and gratuitous disrespect without any substance whatsoever.
Man, does your sense of inadequacy show.
And actually, the morals of an ignorant man, who disrespects thought and intelligence, are the most suspect of all.
I'll go out on a limb and say your sense of any duty to your fellow man is what's phony.
Oh, and if it isn't clear, of course I have morals. It's just that, unlike Peter V. Bella, I don't have to have them handed to me on a platter. Because I can actually think for myself and question others' morals, Bella resents me. And that's because he can't think for himself.
He equates morality with subservience and stupidity.
Ritmo,
Blah blah, blah, see how well I cut and pase, blah blah blah.
As to my fellow man, there is no duty. After me, everyone else comes first. now go fire up your bong and come up with some other comedy we can laugh at.
As I said, incapable of thinking for yourself.
Your (rightly) low opinion of yourself is the funniest show in town.
But I'm getting bored with the bland Midwestern exercise in self-parody that you are, Pete. Why don't you go find some way to occupy yourself? You clearly have nothing interesting to offer. Does thinking of drugs change that reality for you?
And I wonder what drugs the good-cop-turned-bad had to take in order to come up with this non-sequitur brain fart:
As to my fellow man, there is no duty. After me, everyone else comes first.
Can someone translate this blather into "Non-Senile" for me?
On second thought, I'll just let the fact that he calls Rielle Hunter a "hottie" speak for itself.
HAHAHAHHAHHAHAHHAHAHHAHAHAAHAHHAHAHHAHAHAHAHHAHHAHahahhahahahahahha...!
Considering that Raich was 6-3 with Scalia Concurring, you really only need to flip Kennedy on Obamacare. It seems to me that the difference between Raich and Obamacare is pretty clear. In one you are doing something (growing marijuana) and in the other you are not doing something (not buying health insurance). This difference is light years apart as something is the opposite of nothing. While Raich says the feds can "regulate" marijuana growing, can the feds "regulate" the person? Because in order to force someone to purchase insurance, the feds must have the power to regulate the person. The only thing that is remotely close to Obamacare seems to be the draft, which was upheld in Arver (1918). In that case the court reviewed the history of England and America and concluded that compulsory military service was an engrained governmental power and was assumed by the founders as part of the war powers in the Constitution.
I seriously doubt that this court can find that forcing a citizen to buy health insurance has historically been a governmental power.
Also could the right to privacy be invoked here. Mandating that someone buy health insurance intrudes on someone's private decision making about their body.
I see Obamacare going down 5-4.
I am happy to root for the Democrats as the pragmatic party for ensuring our long-term financial health.
Dude, you have to be kidding me. There is nothing pragmatic about bbamacare.o. It merely supposes to cover another 30 million people without addressing costs. This morning on CNBC, John Corzine admitted that the health care bill is relying on future congresses to make "tough" decisions. In other words the legislation is not funded.
The fact is that Republicans and Democrats have kept government spending around 20% for the last 45 years, while revenues came in at 18%. It only took this waste of a President to enact massive increases in spending to 25-30% and keep it at that level for the unforseeable future. This level of spending is unsustainable in America. You cannot increase taxes enough on the rich to even come close to this level. Its possible that a VAT tax levied on the middle class could close the gap, but would such a tax pass? I doubt it, unless Obama wants to jam it through in the next 6 months.
Moreover, the total partisanship in Washington, guarantees that nothing serious will be done about the debt. Obama's biggest mistake was not dealing on healthcare. Now it will become the symbol of our debt.
The most likely scenario will be the bond market forcing the government to take serious austerity measures - which will include the repeal of Obamacare since those 13% who are covered don't vote in waves like the 25% on social security and medicare.
A few days ago, the 2 year Treasury note for the first time sold for a yield above some regular corporate AAAs. I don't recall that ever happening before. It could be a hiccup or it could be the start of something new and different. I predict that this time next year, they will be 10-15 bps higher, with no where to go but up.
In WWII we were able to borrow at 100% GDP. But everyone assumed that the borrowing would end and that spending would be cut. Today however, there is no end to the borrowing. Because our debt issuances are so massive, I don't think we will make it past 60% GDP before people start to freak out
Sloan beat me to it, Ritmo: I am happy to root for the Democrats as the pragmatic party for ensuring our long-term financial health. Keeping our country out of financial ruin is a priority...
As the man said, Dude, you have got to be kidding me. Or do you think that Paul Ryan was just blowing smoke when he eviscerated President Obama during the HC summit? Obama had no answer for all the double-counting and stupid accounting tricks that are packed into this law, because there are none.
The only reason the bill got a positive CBO score is because they took out the doc fix. Pelosi admits it, and further has promised that it will be done in a separate bill. Those so-called cuts in Medicare that make HCR a "deficit reduction" bill are completely bogus.
Oh, wait, there's another reason: the taxes kick in immediately, the benefits won't start being paid out for another 4 years. 10 years collections going against 6 years of payments stacks the ledger a bit, but even that's not enough to ensure solvency in the long run.
But let's ignore that for a moment, too. CBO projections assume a constant growth rate in GDP. They don't factor in how taxes are likely to affect tax revenues, especially how, in a recession, new taxes on business will cause higher unemployment, resulting in fewer tax receipts. Do you really think that GDP growth will be unaffected by the new business taxes? I don't -- and if tax receipts fall, there is no way that we'll hit the targets CBO has set up for us.
It's all smoke & mirrors, Ritmo. I'm surprised you're falling for the "fiscal responsibility" bullshit.
Whew, what a slog.
Looks like the many-headed Hydra showed up again, spouting nonsense, shrieking invective, reeling off spools of slaver, growing two heads for every one chopped off, and proffering multiple oral orifices for tea-bagging while baring green teeth and stinking up the thread with "virulent poison breath ".
Yuck.
wv Kesses...Double Yuck
Oh, and thanks for lacking any clue about my political sentiments. That was edifying.
You're welcome Ritmo. Your constant bashing of conservatives on every occassion doesn't require anyone to be a Sherlock Holmes to discern what your political sentiments are.
Hoosier apparently thinks that the act of bashing conservative ideologues leaves no doubt as to one's own political sentiments. I suppose he should try telling that to Bruce Bartlett and David Frum, former AEI scholars:
David posts his resignation letter and insists it had nothing to do with his recent scathing criticism of the GOP. Bruce Bartlett sympathizes:
I don't know all the details, but I presume that his Waterloo post on Sunday condemning Republicans for failing to work with Democrats on healthcare reform was the final straw.
Since, he is no longer affiliated with AEI, I feel free to say publicly something he told me in private a few months ago. He asked if I had noticed any comments by AEI "scholars" on the subject of health care reform. I said no and he said that was because they had been ordered not to speak to the media because they agreed with too much of what Obama was trying to do.
It saddened me to hear this. I have always hoped that my experience was unique.
But now I see that I was just the first to suffer from a closing of the conservative mind. Rigid conformity is being enforced, no dissent is allowed, and the conservative brain will slowly shrivel into dementia if it hasn't already.
Sadly, there is no place for David and me to go. The donor community is only interested in financing organizations that parrot the party line, such as the one recently established by McCain economic adviser Doug Holtz-Eakin.
Dude, your movement has become sclerotic and just plain incapable of dealing with reality. I'm not talking about ideological conservatism. I am, however, talking about people wanting to follow a fucking movement and call it "conservatism", which is, unfortunately the majority of you.
Your problem is with conservative ideology as a thinking person's response to political issues. The revolutionary/counter-revolutionary face of it and its projection as a social movement, OTOH, is what you're attracted to, and those things have nothing to do with a genuine political philosophy.
Sorry, dude. Sucks to be you. But don't worry. This happened to the left. It happened to the right before, as well (1932). It just plain happens. Over and over again. Don't take it personally. The electorate and American society has its own needs and they go beyond what any one political movement can offer consistently for all time.
It's like surfing. We all have our ups and downs and ride the waves that come our way. I suggest you stop attempting to read overly personal and apocalyptic meanings into such simple and natural things.
It's all smoke & mirrors, Ritmo. I'm surprised you're falling for the "fiscal responsibility" bullshit.
Every industrialized democracy with a better debt situation than us (which is pretty much all of them) has a stronger public financing component to health care, yet makes it universal, and I'm supposed to disbelieve the credible arguments that blame our per capita health care expenditures as one of the strongest causes of what puts us over the top?
No. You've got to be kidding me.
Ritmo - huh? What do our laws have to do with other industrialized countries' ability to finance their universal health care? For comparison purposes, it's useful to look at what they've done as a possible template for moving forward, but at the moment, they're irrelevant. Take down your straw man and address the issues I raised, or admit you're wrong.
I'm talking about the new law, the one that Obama just signed, which is an under-funded economy-killer. Our deficits are bad enough now that P&Gs bonds offer a lower interest rate than US Treasury notes. Turns out the US isn't such a risk-free investment any more.
Yes, the VAT will be coming to help finance this thing, but it's not here yet -- and the Democrats rammed through a bill that is vastly increasing entitlement spending. Even the taxes they had the balls to include aren't going to cover expenditures.
One thing at a time. The bill was/is primarily a political step; Obama and others also see it as a moral improvement, but if you don't care about the plight of the uninsured (a point you don't seem eager to address), that's fine. For you. For millions of others though, that's a different story.
Politically, this is the beginning of a series of steps that turn back Republican over-confidence and the sense of political entitlement they've held ever since Nixon put liberal institutions on the run 42 years ago. The time has come for a shift, and the bill will be improved upon. You want to talk about finances, that's fine. I have no reason to believe the Dems will be any less serious about addressing the crappy credit situation that the GOP put us into than the GOP itself. It was part of their philosophy to bankrupt government as a way to permanently scare Americans into decreasing as revenue streams and entitlements as they could think of. Guess what? They were wrong, and Obama's folks have got the message. They're no longer scared of bucking the line and kowtowing to this pre-industrial philosophy of government. Over time both the issues the bill addressed will be tweaked, as well as our financial situation. That's what the Dems did during the Clinton years and that's what they'll do now. You're just thinking of the short-term picture, but that will change. Especially once the Dems do the heavy lifting of finally pushing for financial regulatory reform and a return to sanity in the financial sector. You should be happy that the picture now doesn't look even bleaker now that the veil was torn off the phony economic growth during the Bush years predicated on nothing but a mirage. Divesting ourselves of all the junk without real value that looked pretty on paper to the GOP is not fun, but we will certainly be better off afterward.
I'm sorry that you have so little faith in our president's ability to walk and chew gum at the same time. Maybe there are a set of blinders that make you incredulous at the idea that we can and we must restore some semblance of physical and social infrastructure while at the same time putting us on a more sound financial track. But I see no reason to wear them. After all, we've got people in office who seem to know not only who they're working for, but that if they're going to be paid for it, there's nothing wrong with actually getting something done. I know that goes against the current GOP philosophy, but that doesn't mean it's impossible. It just means believing in reason and having hope in the ideals realized by what we can accomplish when we look beyond a narrow, selfish perspective.
Neither one of us are policy wonks or constitutional scholars. But what I've just described to you is the state of where the politics stands. And that's a substantial thing, and can meaningfully impact how we look at both of those things that you'd like to fancy us as scholars of -- even though we're not.
Shorter Ritmo: blah blah ad hom is bad, m-kay? blah ad hom attack blah blah blah ad hom attack blah
Go fuck yourself Libtard.
Go fuck yourself Libtard.
This sounds like the sort of ad hominem that reflects how truly fucked YOU feel, CONTARD, or whatever the equivalent insult is.
You are one of the stupidest and most easily offended fucks on here. Your skin is about as thin as your neocortex. But YOU are the one who needs to do something about it. People are tired of voting for people who just say nice things and aren't interested in actually getting anything done. The only ones stupid enough to successfully sell that message are... well, you know who. And the smart ones stopped taking her seriously.
Nice job coming back to a thread two days after it was posted to offer that little pearl of insight.
What do you do for a living, Phen-Fen? I sense a really sensitive soul trapped beneath those terse, foul remarks you keep belching at me. Maybe to get you to behave in a less sociopathic manner, you can imagine Sarah Palin as an Oprah of sorts. Pretend she is interviewing you, and that you are comfortably (and lustfully) perched on a couch to her side. Open up to her, Phen-Fen. What would you tell her about your boring life, in a desperate attempt to make it sound vaguely interesting? BE like Palin! Become one with your own subconscious wish and desire to equate importance with your sloth and celebrity. You can do it!
This will be your essay question. Sarah won't wink at you any more until you answer it.
Ok, now no more Red Eye for you! You need to get some sleep so that you can be a big boy and do your homework! Nightie night, little FEN!
Ritmo, for all you say that the Republicans are delusional, your last reply to me makes me wonder what you're smoking. You seem to think that the Democrats are the party of fiscal responsibility. If that were true, how could their scheme, acknowledged by you, of breaking the economy, even be considered?
You've said repeatedly that Republicans don't care about the uninsured. To a certain extent that's true. Statistics are easy to manipulate, but it's obvious now that the vast majority of those who are uninsured are eligible for state and federal programs already in place. Many of the remaining percentage do not wish to be insured, and that's their right. I, along with millions of other Americans, don't believe we need a multi-trillion dollar bill restructuring our entire society to cover the remaining 15 million or so people. It just doesn't make any sense.
I agree with you that the way the Republicans governed was fiscally irresponsible -- the Bush deficits were deplorable. But I have no confidence that Obama and the Democrats can do any better -- you admit yourself that they're trying to bankrupt the country. Many, many more real people are suffering now because of Obama's policies, which have us running a monthly deficit rate equal to Bush's final, annual deficit. I'm sure you've seen the graph.
If what Bush did to the economy was so bad, how can anyone defend what Obama and the Democrats are doing now? There is no defending it. That graph was created before O-care passed, and O-care is only going to make it worse.
There is no "fixing" this bill. There is no way to justify it. It does not do what it purports to do, which is to insure the uninsured; it certainly doesn't reduce the deficit. It does raise taxes during a recession, which has already caused negative implications for employers.
I don't think you need to be a lawyer or an economist to be able to discuss these issues intelligently. I can see you are sincere in your beliefs but even from a social justice perspective, there can be no defending this bill, which will do far more harm than good.
The bill is problematic as it stands, Joan. I agree with you on that. And if more people could have been insured under existing programs, then why the heck wasn't more noise made about that? The Republicans kept saying they weren't listened to. You honestly think that with all the compromise on the bill - the withdrawal of a public option, the presentation of it as an insurance company giveaway - that something so ostensibly obvious would have been ignored? I find that hard to believe.
I like Paul Ryan and I like conservatives who are sincere in their beliefs and honest about debating the consequences of policy regardless of where it puts them. I don't have a problem with the conservative approach or epistemology or whatever. I don't even necessarily disagree with it, just sometimes differ in its specific application. Nor do I have an ideological problem with anyone wanting to forego insurance. You may find that all hard to believe, but it's true. Politics has a way of messing things up, though.
My basic trust for the administration, however, lies in Obama's sense of timing and intelligence. The guy likes building things and that seems to be the place in time where we're at right now. I don't wish a return to a pre-Reagan welfare state perspective, and neither, I think, does he. We live in a different time and information technology has altered and sharpened the ways in which we can look at the needs of society.
But for every negative that you can point out right now, at this very second, I predict that the administration has already set into motion a number of political and social variables that can lead to their alteration over time. What looks bleak now may not look bleak tomorrow, and that is because momentum is on the (admittedly somewhat activist) administration's side and the nation's side. If, in 7 years, a guy who campaigned on change, faces a nation whose problems look the same then as (or worse than) they look now, then you will be vindicated. If not, then so be it.
I am not saying that what you are pointing out are not problems, I'm saying that I don't fear that they won't change or improve a year or two or three out. You have a keen and fair mind for pointing out objective and discrete concerns, and I appreciate that. I am just wondering if they are as disconnected as you suppose from so many other variables that Obama is impacting - perhaps for the better, as we speak.
Conservatives' great strength lies in understanding that society is complex. I respect that. I also respect that people have different talents and the idea that now might be the time to wonder if we are dismissing the talent some people possess for seeing the forest for the trees. Sorry if that sounds aphoristic, but a broad, long-term, general view is as important as seeing the details. As is the understanding that the details will change under the force of broad, long-term momentum. If the conservative's role is to caution against the unintended consequences of broad action, then surely she can accept that some details might also change for the better. Especially under the leadership of a popular and less polarizing president.
Thanks for the thoughtful reply, Ritmo. Unfortunately, I do not share your optimism or confidence in President Obama. I find him neither popular (his negatives exceed his positives even now) and he is extremely polarizing -- even moreso than was GWB.
I have seen no sign that he has any idea at all of what he's doing. He has never run anything other than the Annenburg Challenge, and that was a disaster. The changes he does want to make are either blatantly unconstitutional -- forcing banks to accept reduced mortgage payments is just the latest in a long line of actions that indicate he doesn't believe contracts are worth the paper they're written on -- or just unworkable in the real world, like the decision to close Guatanamo Bay, and the decision to disband our high-value detainee interrogation units.
On both domestic and foreign policy, Obama has made gaffe after gaffe. The grand plans you envision underlying the current mess exist only in your hopes and dreams, I fear. And if perhaps they do exist, for me and other conservatives, they most likely represent a return to statism, a New New Deal which would destroy American exceptionalism forever.
Freedom works, state control destroys. Compare TX to CA -- which economy would you prefer? We have decades and decades worth of evidence of just how bad state-control is. Are you among those who refuse to admit it?
If O-care is allowed to stand as implemented, the economy will grind to a halt and there will be no fixing it. What happens to the global economy when the US defaults? Who's going to bail us out?
Freedom works, state control destroys. Compare TX to CA -- which economy would you prefer?
That's not really valid. No one of the 50 states can claim to have a 100% self-contained economy. All states trade with each other and other countries.
I would not want to live in Texas because I prefer a Mediterranean climate, gorgeous coast lines, freedom (to keep the gov't from telling you what can go in your own body), a compelling narrative of the American Dream (as sold all over the world through Hollywood studios), and the economy of the present and future (in Silicon Valley), to sweltering heat, tumbleweed, a heavy-handed and anarchistic view of personal freedom - (really, arresting "sodomites" in their own home?), and a view of America that appeals to the most contemptuous impressions of us around the world. And I'm also not a fan of Texas' educational standards. But that's just me. Although I hear San Antonio's nice.
As for Texas' economy, I'm not so sure what to say about a state that benefits as much as it did from the cronyism of the previous president, or Enron's ability to pull a fast one on the CA energy market. But it looks like Boone Pickens is on to something and maybe once personal aerospace travel takes off they'll be in a respectable economic position.
CA's economy is bad because of the housing bubble. Before that it was doing fine and leading the country. But the housing bubble resulted from bad federal legislation - pin it on CA's government all you want, but that's a revision of history that doesn't really meet the burden of empiric reality, as far as I'm aware.
Obama's ratings can afford to wane as much at this early point as any other president's have. He took a hit on his principled push for health care, as he acknowledged, and bounced back once it passed. He will win re-election because he can rally his base and independents trust him over anyone the GOP will field, even if he tends to rankle some of the GOP base.
I'm not so sure you're the best judge of what foreigners think of us, let alone of Obama. He has restored America's standing in world opinion, so the nitpicking on "gaffes" doesn't seem to be a very legitimate form of criticism - even if it does sell the GOP message of wanting to make the president seem like a failure.
Other decisions he's made merit Obama respect due to his ability to carefully weigh opinion and change his mind. You see this as a weakness. Others rightly see a need for absolute certainty in all matters all the time as a very stifling and brittle position from which to govern. Comfort with doubt and uncertainty come from a confidence and willingness to remain engaged in a world that changes more quickly than do some politicians' fixed worldviews. That might or might not be a criterion for success. But I doubt the independents see it as the liability that you do. The left doesn't; they probably see how much it rankles the right and celebrate the fact that curiosity is no longer denigrated with impunity.
Without curiosity and an ability to adapt the human condition withers.
Hmmm. I don't believe it's fair to say CA's problems are solely due to the housing bubble. CA's problems right now have to do with the state legislature spending more than they take in, and hiking taxes to try to make up the difference. People and jobs are fleeing CA daily at an extraordinary rate. Is the housing bubble part of that? Sure, but a lot more of it has to do with the morass of stifling laws, taxes, and regulations that CA has implemented.
I do believe, were you to live in TX -- and I may be wrong -- but there is such a thing as school choice, so you could choose where to educate your children, or even home school them without being hassled by the state. We have school choice here in AZ -- it's the only thing that's keeping me from home-schooling my three.
Our standing in the world has crumbled. We have insulted our allies repeatedly and embraced our enemies. The current situation in Israel is completely the fault of the Obama administration's overstepping its bounds -- it is simply not reasonable to ask Israel to stop building in established Jewish neighborhoods. The rest of the Middle East is certainly taking note of our treatment of our old ally, even as Iran spins up it centrifuges and prepares to go nuclear.
Yet you see all of these things, somehow, as good. You & I will have to agree to disagree. Time will tell.
Obama's "treatment" of Israel is only relevant if you think that Arabs are, by nature, incapable of looking favorably and ethically upon what they consider to be fair treatment. America is not treating Israel in a way that expects anything more than previous administrations have expected. The current government there sees things differently because they have an apocalyptic wing to cater to, but whatever. They're a sovereign nation and they get to choose someone who respects the power of their best ally over that of a messianic settler movement, or not. It's hardly something to get that worked up over, but mainstream Israeli opinion is hardly sympathetic to needless provocation and a settlement movement that refuses to see the difficulties with imposing rule over a former minority that's now big enough to be a majority.
Iran will get a bomb regardless of what anyone has to say about it. It sucks having to live with all sorts of people wanting power, but that's the reality of a world in which knowledge generally, and knowledge of how to manufacture dangerous weapons specifically, cannot be contained.
As for California and the rest, three words: John Maynard Keynes. Spending to stop a depression is different from the spending that got us into one. You make a convenient philosophical distinction now that disregards the morality between spending on tax cuts and spending to keep the economy from collapsing. Economists do as well, but in a different direction.
California is instructive of where populist government by referendum gets us. Reducing everything to ballot initiatives that frames every issue in terms of taxes cut is their problem, and one the GOP thinks it can emulate nationally.
The fact of the matter is that wealthier societies have higher tax rates. It's just a fact of life. Third world countries have to grow any way they can. The first-world can grow (and continue to take care of its own) in smarter ways.
John Maynard Keynes
In the (almost) words of my 11-year-old daughter: Srsly? O. M. G.
Hey, maybe you're right and we're not heading for a huge crash. If so, I'll quite cheerfully admit I was wrong. But for right now, the policies that the administration are pursuing are hurting us way more than they're helping us. We're digging in deeper and deeper, and the latest new unfunded mandates and higher taxes are just going to cause more unemployment. The uncertainty that's swirling around Obama -- approaching that which surrounded FDR -- is equally bad for business. When unemployment hits 15%, then what, Ritmo? How much will tax receipts have fallen by, then, and who will be left for the government to raise taxes on, to make up the shortfall?
You're clinging to a fantasy that has been disproved time and again. It's too bad you don't see it.
You're clinging to a fantasy that has been disproved time and again. It's too bad you don't see it.
Neither does any accomplished, mainstream economist. Quote me three who disagree.
Taking a fringe opinion that not even 10% of economists hold, regarding such an important aspect of economic theory, and basing policy off of it is a pretty desperate and reckless thing to do. This is the same thinking that led us to believe that endless, unfunded tax cuts as the answer to every problem aren't a form of government expenditure in themselves. You seem to forget that the stimulus bills started with Bush as the economy the "MBA president" led almost fell into oblivion; the GOP bashes them in a cynical attempt to appeal to a base and an opposition movement that doesn't know any better. But most of the Republican senators, behind closed doors at least, do.
Quoting emoticon-laden internet-speak and 11 year-olds is not a way to be taken seriously on this. The numbers regarding unemployment, etc., would have been much worse with a lower package; Obama has actually taken a huge political risk by keeping the spending as low as he did.
A repudiation of basic Keynesian economics with a condescending presumption of any viability to it is not a way to be taken seriously. A company and its employees could give a damn if the demand for their services and their economic output comes from private customers or the government, as long as it's there.
The inability of conservative activists (and I use the word "activist" deliberately) to take responsibility for the depth of the recession that started in 2008, combined with their demand to be taken seriously regarding their radical prescriptions for its fixes, is the ultimate hubris. They have really lost a lot of credibility on this. You should thank your lucky stars that growth has even occurred so soon after the second Great Depression they nearly started (5.8% currently).
The only uncertainty in the economy right now stands with the fact that financial regulatory reform has not been approved. Seriously, how much more steadily can we grow when we still have in place the regulation that didn't prevent the crash? The administration's just waiting for the right moment politically to hold the investors to account. If the threat of a temporary drop in the Dow can be avoided, there's no reason not to - as we can see how much short-term thinking there is out there. Reform is needed for a return to fiscal sanity in the long-run, though. You probably know this.
Ritmo - enough already. You see the world through your Keynesian-colored glasses, I don't. I disagreed with TARP or the stimulus or whatever you want to call it from the get-go. Far from making things better, everything that Bush & Obama have done to "improve" the economy have just screwed it up even more, the same way FDR's policies prolonged the Great Depression.
There's no point in continuing this. Thank you for the discussion.
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